♡︎ Without Me {Matt Sturniolo} ♡︎

Without Me Chapter Five

Without Me Chapter Five

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A sense of uncontrollable defeat tarried with Matt after that night. It lingered, hitting him with the reality of what he'd done. And it did, it all struck him at once when he'd woken up the morning after with tear-stained cheeks, and sore, tattered wrists.

And why wouldn't it? Why wouldn't Matt have to deal with what he'd done to himself? The world was never just going to stop, wasn't just going to stop spinning on its axis all because he wanted it to, or because he was a little overwhelmed. And obviously that feeling of defeat he felt was going to hang there, nagging at him until he felt mortification. Which he did, seriously, who the hell had a breakdown in the company of their sleeping brother only to resolve it by cutting into their own flesh afterward? It'd all happened on account of him being too emotional too. Too sensitive for this world and a few ignorant fucking bullies to just deal with it.

Matt could never just deal with anything the right way.

And while he was on that train of thought, apparently, he'd answered his earlier question as well. Matt couldn't ever deal with anyone. So was the kind of anomaly that hurt himself. He did that, he was the one who newly solved his issues at the hand of a blade. Evidently, Matt was so utterly self-destructive that he harmed himself to make it all go away. It's not that he was proud of it either because he wasn't. If anything he was ashamed, felt flawed, entirely ruined for what he'd done to himself.

Nonetheless, there was no talking about it after that, no coming clean. He couldn't admit to his brother about the self-harm, or about what he'd openly sobbed to Chris while the brunette had been blissfully sleeping. Rightfully, left unaware.

Because the truth was that he'd blown that all, he'd lost his nerve when he'd found out that Chris wasn't awake. And now it was too late for him to ever conjure it again. Chris didn't know about any of it and how could the younger be expected to figure it out when Chris had been asleep the whole time?

That's just it, there was no point in Matt's mind to even attempt to come clean about it all when he didn't have to. Chris had been asleep at the time anyway.

To him, it was better to keep this all to himself. Christopher was easy to hide the defeat and self-destructive tendencies from. Easy to get past. Nicolas however? Matt was beginning to think that his brother Nick was beginning to see right through him. Down to the very cracks that were splintering his entire being.

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Nicolas Sturniolo wasn't stupid, especially not when his brothers were involved. Matt hadn't been himself lately, he noticed that, how could he not? Matthew wasn't alright. And in turn, neither he nor Chris had been alright either.

And they wouldn't be until Matt pulled through whatever this was. He hoped the younger only knew that he was here, that he would always be in Matt's corner, on Matt's side to help.

An integral piece of him was beginning to see that his brother didn't see that anymore, not lately. That Matthew couldn't see that when one of them weren't okay, none of them were okay. Call it a triplet thing if you will. All Nicolas knew was that their entire lives, and personalities, had been built off of one another. Their moods echoing off of one another were no different.

It's just that there was always this levitational pull that Nicolas felt that always pulled him toward his brothers when one of them weren't doing okay. This vital need to protect and help fix his brother's crises.

The only problem with that was that Matt clearly didn't want that. Wasn't letting that happen. Matthew wasn't letting anyone in for that matter. And that worried him.